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The Complete Roulette Guide: Everything You Need to Know

Usually, when people think of a casino it is the roulette wheel that comes to mind. Roulette isn’t the all-time favorite for nothing. It’s part of every casino and is usually placed at the center of the floor. The concept is simple – you get your chips, pick a number, place your bet and watch the ball spin.

In an online casino, the best elements of the traditional casino are mixed with a digital experience, giving you the chance to play roulette wherever you are. There are different kinds of roulette available in an online casino. For online roulette, there’s the graphic generated virtual roulette and the much more popular live roulette. When you play live roulette online, you watch a live stream of a professionally trained, real-life dealer doing exactly the same things he would be doing in a land-based casino all the while you interact with the game using only your keyboard to make your bet selections or even participate in the live chat between the players currently on this table and the dealer.

Quick Overview: Step-by-Step How to Play Roulette Online and Offline

If you are an experienced roulette player and a frequent goer to the local land-based casino, the biggest difference you’ll notice when playing online roulette at a casino is the large offering of different roulette variations offered. We will go cover most of those roulette varieties in detail later on. If you are new to roulette and interested in playing at an online casino we suggest you make use of the free roulette game options where you don’t have to wager real money.

First, we’ll go through the basics in the following steps. The rules and betting options are the same whether you are playing in a land-based casino or playing online roulette.

Roulette Overview: American Version

In the first step, you place your bets.

1st Step: Place Your Bet(s)

The very first thing you need to do is place your bets. You do this by moving your chips to the bet of your choice, it could be placing some chips on number 28 or on the Black or on the Red color. There are many different betting options, before you start playing roulette you should make sure you’re aware of the most common ones.

In the second step, the dealer spins the wheel.

2nd Step: Spin The Wheel

The dealer will announce that no more bets can be placed and will proceed to spin the wheel and the ball starts going around and around.

The wheel spins

3rd Step: Results

The roulette wheel will finally stop with the ball falling down on a number. You receive a payout if the ball lands on one of your numbers.

In the third step, the wheel stops and the ball lands on the winning number.

4th Step: Repeat

Roulette has no final winner, the dealer will accept new bets and spin the wheel again and again for as long as you want to play.

Quick Overview: Layout of a Roulette Table

European

For most people, European roulette is the most popular variation. It’s the one James Bond plays when he is in the casinos. The European roulette wheel only features one single zero with numbers ranging from 0-36.

American

In Las Vegas, on the other hand, the American roulette version features double zeros. Another difference is that the sequence of the numbers on the wheel is different. In both European and American, the types of bets you are able to place remain the same.

French

French roulette is almost synonymous with the European version. A single zero on the wheel, same number sequence and same bet types available. The difference is that the French version uses a game mechanic similar to the blackjack insurance if a dealer hits a blackjack. There are two bets available, “En Prison” and “La Partage”, where you only lose half of your bet amount if the wheel stops at zero.

The rest of the games on this list are normally only available in online casinos.

Mini Roulette

Mini roulette is a compact version of traditional roulette. Instead of numbers ranging from 0-36, mini roulette only ranges from 0-13. This game also makes use of a betting option from the French roulette, allowing you to place “La Partage” bets for extra protection if the wheel stops on zero.

Mini-Ball

If you are looking for fast-paced action then this game is for you! The multi-ball roulette uses up to ten balls at once, it’s normally played in European format with the addition of new betting options.

Mini-Wheel

Another action-packed version of roulette. Similar to multi-ball, multi-wheel is played in European format, instead of one wheel, you can play up to eight wheels at the same time.

Live Roulette

This is as close as you can get to the real-life experience of playing in an actual land-based casino. In live roulette, some of the games mentioned are available featuring an actual dealer spinning the wheel.

Best Casinos to play Roulette

What Types of Bets can you Place in Roulette?

There are two main areas where betting options are presented on a roulette table, inside and outside.

Inside Roulette Bets

Straight-up: single number bets.
Payout: 35:1

Split: Bet on two numbers.
Payout: 17:1

Street: Bet on three numbers in a row.
Payout: 11:1

Square: Bet on four numbers in a square (can also be referred to as a Corner).
Payout: 8:1

Basket: Bet on 1, 2, 3 and Zero(s).
Payout: 6:1

Line: Bet six numbers in two rows.
Payout: 5:1

Outside Roulette Bets:
Column: Bet on 12 numbers.
Payout: 2:1

Dozen:
Bet on 12 numbers.
Payout: 2:1

Low Number:
Bet on all numbers 1-18.
Payout: 1:1

High Number:
Bet on all numbers 19-36.
Payout: 1:1

Red/Black:
Bet on all red or black numbers.
Payout: 1:1

Odd/Even:
Bet on all odd or even numbers.
Payout: 1:1

Difference Between Land-based and Online Casino Roulette

If you’ve ever been to a land-based casino you’ll know that the atmosphere can be almost electrical, especially around a busy roulette table. You can joke with the dealer, congratulate your fellow roulette players and chit-chat while playing.
When you place a bet or even better, when your number hits, you get a stack of your colored chips returned to you. The pleasant noise when you’re playing around with the clay chips and putting them in stacks in front of you before placing another bet and holding your breath as the dealer drops the roulette ball.

There are major differences between playing online roulette compared to going to a land-based casino. First of all, when playing online roulette, you’re most likely playing from the comfort of your home and the only thing your hands are touching is either your phone and its screen or the mouse and keyboard of a computer.
Most of the other elements are there though, online casinos have done a great job emulating the traditional casino experience and atmosphere.
The wheel and the dealer are the focus on your screen, you’ll be able to see the table but the way you bet is through a graphical interface on your screen. This is called GUI (Graphical User Interface), where you see the table and numbers along with betting options. Your chips will be available in the GUI where you can add more money to play with and adjust your wagering limits. If you decide to bet a 10 Canadian Dollar bet, you choose the chips with $10 value and then simply click on the number of betting options you’d like to bet. The dealer drops the ball and you can hear the familiar sound of the wheel spinning and the ball eventually bouncing down and settling on the winning number. The dealer announces the number and if you win, your cash balance at the table will increase.

If you start playing online roulette you’ll probably come across tables that are streamed live from inside land-based casinos where actual players are playing in real life, you’d be able to hear them and the ambiance of the casino. In such a setup you will not be able to see the dealer, only the roulette wheel and the GUI.

When you play roulette online, it’s very easy to find game information and rules. You should find all the information you need under the rules section of the online casino, there can be a lot of information in the rules sheet, make use of ‘CTRL+F’ to search more effectively.

Roulette Strategies

If you made it all the way here, it’s now time to find a roulette strategy that suits you.

By now, you should have a good understanding of the game and how to play roulette. Now it’s time to take the first few steps towards mastering the game of roulette. There’s a number of different roulette strategies to choose from, go through all of them and try the ones that you think will suit your style of play.

If you are playing online roulette we suggest that you try out these roulette strategies in free-to-play modes, where you play free roulette without wagering any real money. In free-to-play you instead wager with play money and just request more playing chips if you run out.

Roulette strategies can be broadly categorized as either conservative or aggressive. Before you start playing with real money we suggest that you use play money in free roulette games. It’s a great way to practice while getting familiar with roulette and the various strategies presented below:

The 5 best Roulette Strategies

Below you can find some of the most popular roulette betting strategies.

• Paroli System
• 1 3 2 6 System
• Martingale System
• Andrucci System
• D’Alembert

Paroli System

The Paroli system makes use of a so-called positive progression betting system. The term positive progression is used because you would double your wager every time you win a bet. You repeat the double of your wager until you have three wins in a row. You then go back to your starting wager. If you lose you start over with the starting wage.

Paroli is an easy to remember roulette strategy that is quick to learn and straightforward to use at the tables. This strategy is very popular among roulette players.

1 3 2 6 System

This system is similar to the Paroli system. It’s similar in the way that it’s another positive progressive system. Basically, you bet in the sequence of 1 3 2 6, if the sequence is broken by a lost bet you start over from 1:

First-round you wager 1x your betting limit.
Second-round you wager 3x your betting limit.
Third-round you wager 2x your betting limit.
Fourth-round you wager 6x your betting limit.

This system is suitable for players who are very conservative as it doesn’t require you to bet large wagers in single spins.

Martingale System

The legendary Martingale system is probably the oldest and most well-known roulette strategy.

This system is very straightforward. Every time you lose, you double your next bet. This way, you have a good chance to recover what you previously lost. This system can be considered very aggressive and require a rather large bankroll, consecutive losses can and probably will happen at some point when this happens your bets will become huge.

Andrucci System

If you spin a roulette wheel over and over again for all eternity, the ball will land on all numbers the same amount of time. The Andrucci system is based on the concept of chaos theory. In chaos theory, within the apparent randomness of a complex system, such as a roulette wheel with a random outcome from 0-36, there are underlying patterns and interconnection. Because of these underlying patterns, we can quite confidently determine that a random distribution of outcomes over a very large period of time, or spins in the case of roulette, will yield a predictable outcome that the ball will land on all numbers with an even distribution.

Over a short space of time, however, certain numbers do come up more often than others, randomly. The Andrucci system is based on deciding what number you believe will show up 8 times out of 35 spins, you then bet on this number round after round for 35 spins.

D’Alembert

Yet another strategy based on the theory of positive progression, it’s conservative and suits people with a low-risk appetite. In the D’Alembert system you decide to bet on either Odd or Even, then keep betting the same amount for as long as you win, when you lose you add one chip of equal value to one chip of your total stake and then go on doing so until you win again. Your wager size could become large in a scenario where you lose repeatedly over many rounds but the risk of this happening is very low since Odd/Even has a 50/50 distribution.

Best Roulette Game Studios

Truthfully, it is hard to determine the “best” live casino providers today. Only a decade ago, there were a handful of high-quality studios producing live casino games, and comparing them would be an easy job. Today, there are countless studios worldwide using the latest technologies and producing products of very competitive quality.
What we can do is give you the ones we personally prefer and those for whose good reputation we can personally vouch for.

◆ Microgaming
◆ Evolution Gaming
◆ Authentic Gaming
◆ Netent

History of Roulette

Did you know that “roulette” means “little wheel” in French? The game took inspiration from an even older game of chance called Biribi which originated during the 1720s in France. Biribi used a board with the numbers 1-70, punters would then place their bets on the numbers, similar to single bets in roulette, a banker (similar to a dealer) would then draw a random ticket from a closed bag and announce the winning number. The legendary adventurer and author Giacomo Casanova is known to have played the game of Biribi, where he got into a quarrel with the banker and proclaimed that the game of Biribi is a cheat’s game. This statement is likely to be true for many-a-games of Biribi due to the nature of drawing numbers in a non-transparent way. The game was prohibited by law in 1837.

Roulette got a foothold in Paris during 1796 while Biribi was still being played across the country. The reason why roulette survived is due to the transparent and random way the winning number is picked.

Did Roulette Originate In Canada?

Most of the history as we know it points towards Roulette having originated in France during the 18th century. However, there are historical artifacts suggesting that the game of roulette was available much earlier than 1796 and that the game of roulette may have originated in the City of New France, present-day Canada. There is a surviving document from that time originating from Quebec, stating that the games of dice, hora, faro, and roulette are banned in the territory of New France.

The first roulette wheels featured the zero and double zero. A casino introduced the single zero roulette wheel in Germany in 1843; the casino wanted to get a competitive edge over other casinos by offering a new style of roulette.

In America, another version was played in some saloons, where the wheel ran from 1-28, with a zero and double zero along with an American eagle in one of the slots.

During the early 19th century roulette spread like wildfire through the western world and became one of the most popular casino games. Later in the 19th century, gambling became regulated and prohibited throughout Europe. When the German government finally outlawed all forms of gambling in the 1860s, a very prominent family who was operating a casino in Germany during the time, moved their operations to Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo was the last outpost for gambling in Europe. The principle quickly became the designated spot for gambling in Europe and the German version of a zero roulette game became the premier game in this new gambling mecca of the European elite.

Throughout the decades the only noteworthy casino cities throughout the western world were Monte Carlo and Las Vegas. During the 1970s casinos again started to flourish throughout the west. Both the single zero and double zero roulette versions are commonly played where the single zero is the most popular version while double zero roulette is most commonly featured in Canada, the United States, throughout the Caribbean and South America.